The Early Cricket Library

Welcome to the Early Cricket Library. There is much here to enjoy. This page is a listing of numerous writings, with links to full texts for many of the older ones of particular importance.

The first book of cricket scorecards and the rarest of all cricket books – only five are known to exist. In 2023, the British Library obtained John Arlott’s former copy, using a donation of £180,000 to do so.

Samuel Britcher was the first MCC scorer, and between 1790 and 1803, he gathered together scores which, together with an additional volume covering 1804/05, were published in 15 small books over that period. They were the first books of scores and are very rare; a total of only 52 copies are known to exist.

Boxall was a noted bowler and is believed by some to be the first player to have bowled leg breaks. In 1790, Boxall published probably the earliest cricket instructional book, The Cricket Guide. In 1801, towards the end of his playing career, he published Rules and Instructions for Playing at the Game of Cricket, which reproduced his coaching material and added a section detailing the Laws of the game. Early editions of the book are extremely scarce and are prized by collectors of early cricket literature. I am afraid that I am not able to provide a copy to view here, but much of the material was recycled in John Nyren’s The Young Cricketer’s Tutor, available on this website in EV Lucas’s The Hambledon Men. Techniques are discussed on this page.

Full title – The Cricketers’ Guide or a Concise Treatise on the Noble Game of Cricket as practised by the most eminent players. Another book of instruction.

Full title – A Correct Account of All the Cricket matches which have been played by the Mary-le-bone Club, and All Other Principal matches, from the Year 1786 to 1822

Henry Bentley (1782-1857) enjoyed a long playing career principally for England, MCC, the Players and Middlesex, participating in grand matches from 1801 to 1822. Once his career as a professional bowler ended, he set out to provide the cricketing public with this book of scores and its two supplements before then turning to umpiring. Although the correctness of his Correct Account has been called into question, it was an important step in the tradition of dedicated score-keeping started by Britcher.

Mary Russell Mitford (16 December 1787 – 10 January 1855) was an English author and dramatist. She was born at Alresford in Hampshire. She is best known for Our Village (1824), a series of sketches of village scenes and vividly drawn characters based upon her life in Three Mile Cross near Reading in Berkshire. Her description of village cricket in this book has been called by EW Swanton “the first major prose on the game” (bear in mind, Nyren‘s work was not published until 1833).

The cricket chapter is reproduced here.

A famous review of John Nyren’s The Young Cricketer’s Tutor in the Gentleman’s Magazine, July and September, 1833, as reprinted in The Hambledon Men.

It can be read here.

Published while Pycroft was still an undergraduate at Oxford. His manual contained a formal set of rules on how to bat and some dietary advice for cricketers: ‘Ale and Porter render the eye very dull. The dinner alters the course of the game considerably; but it has more effect on the Bowling, than on the Batting’.

This was the first of four book Pycroft wrote about the game.

Subtitle: Being a scientific inquiry into the use of the cricket bat

The classic early instructional cricket book by the renowned Kent and All-England batsman, Nicholas Wanostrocht, who played under the name Felix, was a schoolmaster at Blackheath and played cricket as an amateur in the early Nineteenth Century. This famous work gives a fascinating insight into the techniques employed by cricket’s earliest batsmen, with strokes like the Draw and the Home Block being part of batting technique.

It can be read here.

A follow-up to The Cricket Field, it reproduces a certain amount of information therein. An excellent guide to Early Cricket thinking about how to play.

It can be read here.

An early book of cricket history. A precursor to the next item.

One brief chapter of this book, John Bowyer Smokes a Pipe with me, is well worth reading for the insight it gives into late Eighteenth Century cricket. It can be read here.

Includes much about the early game.

It can be read here

This book is an Encyclopedia of English recreation, first published in 1801 and revised twice thereafter. A key source on the origins of the game and links to other related games

This 1831 edition can be read here. Of relevance in particular is the chapter on handball, etc, page 71 onwards.

Classic book of research into Early Cricket.

A history of cricket produced in the early part of the Twentieth Century.

It can be read here.

An anthology of the great writings from the nineteenth century, about the eighteenth. It is available in full here. Key texts are:

• 1833 – The Young Cricketer’s Tutor, – John Nyren (not in Arlott’s book)
• 1833 – The Cricketers of My Time, – John Nyren
• 1833 – Review of John Nyren’s Book, – Rev John Mitford
• 1882 – The Hambledon Club and the Old Players, – Rev James Pycroft (Chapter 3 of The Cricket Field)

Nyren’s The Cricketers of My Time (and its accompanying article A few Memoranda Respecting the Progress of Cricket) is the most important of any cricket book about the period, possibly about cricket ever. It is referred to throughout this site. It can also be read here.

Pycroft is also of vast importance, as an early source. Key chapters are available here and the full version can be read here in pdf.

It can be read here.

First published in 1906, the author traces all references to cricket up to 1800. Sourced from an extensive range of contemporary newspapers and other documents, this book has become a major reference work for scholars and historians of the game. Pictured is a facsimile reprint, with an introduction by John Goulstone.

Detailed account of the Hambledon Club’s History. Mostly consists of a reproduction of the club’s minute and account books.

Six very long and influential pamphlets written by PF Thomas deal with particular issues concerning early cricket in enormous detail, but, I think, fail to provide a coherent view of the development of the game. If you want to spend a lot of time thinking about issues such as the origin of the word ‘cricket’, these writings are a good place to start.

That is, if you can find them, they are very rare. Facsimiles are however, sometimes available on second-hand book sites.

A classic general history with a good section on early cricket can be read here.

The full text may be downloaded from this site

Sub-title – A Collection of 1000 Cricket Notices from 1697 to 1800 AD Arranged in Chronological Order. A key reference book, as is its companion volume, Fresh Light on Pre-Victorian Cricket: A Collection of New Cricket Notices from 1709 to 1837.

A charming little book traces the development of cricket equipment back to its earliest days.

A definitive book about the early development of the laws.

An article from History Today, very good on the Northern game.

It can be read here.

A general history of the game from a much respected cricket statistician.

I would guess that this is the most widely read source of information about early cricket and the source of the most widely held myths about the game. it is a long way from being authoritative, but still encapsulates the joy of the game in a very special way.

Vera Southgate (1916 – 1995) was an educationalist who dedicated herself to improving how children were taught to read English. She wrote many Ladybird books.

I have devoted a full page to considering the contents of this wonderful book insofar as it relates to early cricket.

The book is one of the great books of cricket history. Bowen is incredibly well informed about world cricket and is on a mission to downplay the English involvement, hard though that may be. Strong on early cricket, this book should be reprinted. If you can get hold of a copy, do.

Rowland Bowen is an extraordinary figure, widely known for having chopped off one of his own legs – we now call this urge Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). More about his life can be learned here.

A reissue of a book first printed in 1948. In a way, it is the highlights of Lucas, consisting of texts by Nyren, Pycroft and Mitford, all with introductions from Arlott. In fact, though, he reproduced a little more of Pycroft and Mitford than Lucas does. Some nice illustrations, even if one of the White Conduit Fields is mislabeled as Lords.

This book was given to me for Christmas in 1975 and it captured my imagination. I well remember Arlott’s closing words:

Yet the reader and the writer of cricket books will do well to realise, as any dispassionate literary critic does, that cricket has still to produce a work of comparable magnitude to Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler. That is the goal at which these cricket classics aim, to which, in falling short, they point the way.

A multi-part book accompanying a BBC TV series. The most relevant parts for this site (as well as being the best) are John Arlott’s finely-crafted 100-page history of the game and the cricket anthology compiled by Gilbert Phelps.

The two chapters of Arlott’s history which deal with the game before 1800 can be read here.

An account of the major stages in the game’s development, from the medieval folk pastime to the Packer Circus.

Great history of cricket equipment, good coverage of early cricket

The great Encyclopedia of Cricket, a very wide coverage. Out of date now, of course and will never be reissued as the web has taken over the function of such books.

The sections about early cricket history can be read here.

An important 40-page booklet by the ASC, which defines sound criteria for what qualifies as an Important Match (a broader category than First Class) and lists those matches which it considers to be within that category. An important and pathfinding publication; only minimal changes have been made to this listing since publication. As ever, the ASC performed a great service to cricket historians.

Fine book of cricket paintings, especially old cricket paintings. Originally produced in connection with an exhibition of cricket paintings.

A whimsical and entertaining general history with a decent section on early cricket. Benny Green is a very witty author, not known as a cricket historian per sé, but his love of the game shines through.

A general history of cricket with a good section on early cricket. Excellent maps and tables relating to early cricket. You will see a few on this site.

Peter Wynne-Thomas was one of the great cricket historians and was based at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. It is said that even when a great match was taking place on the ground, he would rather be in the library than watching the cricket; make of that what you will.

Charming book, only partly about cricket. Well illustrated.

Impressive history of cricket at Broadhalfpenny Down, even if it plays fast and loose with facts on occasions. For instance, he says the first cricket building, The Lodge, was located at Broadhalfpenny Down; it wasn’t, it was at Windmill Down. And he overplays Hambledon’s role as a maker of cricket laws.

Ashley Mote, however, is a discredited character. A far-right politician who has the distinction of being disowned for disreputability by Donald Trump supporter Nigel Farage, he was imprisoned for fraudulently claiming expenses from the European Parliament.

A scholarly edition of Nyren’s great work, which reproduces the text as it appears in the original manuscript. The essential difference between Mote’s version and the original 1833 book is that Mote arranged the parts in the order that they were written: hence, The Cricketers of My Time comes first and precedes The Young Cricketer’s Tutor with the Memoranda at the end.

Birley is a brilliant writer, concentrating on the social aspects of the game. Always sceptical of the cricketing establishment.

The one full-length narrative history which concentrates on the early game. A lot of time is spent contextualising the subject within terms of broader English social history. Indeed, on page 114, Underdown says that he has more important things than cricket to discuss.

That said, he is telling a story about Eighteenth Century society and how it was structured and how it affected and shaped the game of cricket. At the centre of the text is his thoughtful examination of the Hambledon Club and the story of its great days and its interaction with the aristocratic forces who pulled the game towards London. He concludes that if cricket is to survive in any worthwhile form, we need to rediscover how it was played at Broadhalfpenny Down.

A book worth reading, but especially valuable to those who already have some familiarity with the cricket in the period.

A history of cricket in Hambledon, of which the early days are only a small part. It is still worthwhile, though, containing valuable information about the neglected topic of Windmill Down.

This book serves as a reply to The Glory Days. Goulstone takes Mote and other cricket writers to task for several inaccuracies. For instance, he devotes a chapter to explaining why the cricketer involved in the large bat incident is not Shock White but Thomas White of Reigate and shows that the previously accepted document about the incident is a forgery.

He is also particularly keen on family trees, they crop up throughout the book, doing not much more I am afraid, than listing out names of people who we nothing about, a bit like a telephone directory. The research though is meticulous throughout.

Very detailed research into source documentation for Sussex Cricket. Most impressive.

It can be read here.

A very fine book, it takes the story of cricket up to the outbreak of the First World War. John Major is, of course, a former Prime Minister, and, unusually, one whose reputation has grown with time. It must be said, he acknowledges considerable help in both researching and writing this book, but his tone of voice still shines through. If I can find a fault, it is an occasional preoccupation with the Patrons or money-men of the game – but there again, Major is a Tory.

Nonetheless, if, as they say, you want just one book of early cricket history, I think this is your best bet.

The four large volumes of this masterful work which have been published so far take us to 1790. They set out in chronological order every single reference to cricket that can be traced in the Eighteenth Century. For example:

They are expensive and printed in limited editions, but are without equal in their value to someone who wants to get to grips with the detail of cricket in the period. Two more volumes will complete the series

Includes scores of 237 games from the 18th century, which a working party of ACS members classified as ‘great’ matches, on the same footing as first-class matches in later periods.

Another ACS publication. This supplements the match scores (the previous work) with listings of every player who appeared in these games and their statistical highlights, as well as updates to the earlier work.

A book about the Women’s game; like most cricket books, it tends to focus on famous matches and players. My personal view is that elite women’s cricket was such a small world for much of its history that a little more space should have been granted to the game’s development at club level. That said, there are some excellent chapters, happily including one on women’s cricket in the Eighteenth Century.

The book has two main goals: to provide readers with an accessible introduction to the history of grassroots cricket in England and to supply a clear overview of the different phases of this history.

Notwithstanding the sub-title, there is an excellent chapter on Eighteenth Century cricket. It can be read here.

The only biography amongst this collection of books. A very well-researched book about the cricketer who dominated the early part of nineteenth-century cricket. He made his debut at Lord’s first ground on 2 June 1791, so so is relevant to our period as well. It contains much valuable general information about cricket of the period.

Beauclerk has always had a poor reputation for his personal qualities, or lack of them. This book redressed the balance a little.

Internet resource – A wonderful source of information, that is, if you want scorecards, averages and the like. It lives behind a paywall, fifty quid per annum. A bit steep, I would have said, puts off those who only want an occasional peek.

Internet resource – website of the wonderful ASC. There is much material on eighteenth-century cricket. Digital membership is twenty five pounds per annum.

Mostly about the current games but its database does go back to the Eighteenth Century. A great site, free to use.